It is known that various accessories can be attached to living creatures and inanimate objects such as clothing to and, in particular, shoes using holders that secure such items for attachment and detachment. Such accessories include decorative items, ornamentation, and amusing objects. Many patents claim different arrangements for a holder and the article to secure these accessories to people, to clothes and to shoes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,198 provides a structure for retaining decorative items such as decal on the vamp of a shoe with a holder that extends below flaps of the shoes and requires unlacing of the shoelaces from multiple eyelets and the re-lacing of the laces back through the eyelets and also through the holder.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,640,467 shows a “Decorative Shoe Accessory” that uses a base located above the tongue of the shoe and that can be releasably attached to the vamp of the shoe by engagement with the shoe laces. The holder may releasably hold an ornamental figurine for interchange of such figures. The base holder cannot engage shoelaces for passage therethrough.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,519 is directed to an “Accessory for Shoelaces” that comprises a clamping device for retaining and encapsulating free ends of a shoe lace at the top of the shoe's vamp. The rear wall of the clamping device has a pair of openings positioned to receive the free ends of the shoelaces. Thus, the clamping device can only be used for shoelaces and only at the top of the shoe's vamp.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,237,347 shows many different decorative animal figures for attachment to the vamp of the shoe by its shoelaces or using hook and loop straps. Each depicted animal has a different holder incorporated into its body to retain the figure on shoelaces or via hook and loop straps in a different manner. To take advantage of the different positioning offered by the different attachment arrangement a different decorative animal figure is needed.
Thus, many different holders or attachment arrangements are available to secure accessories about the vamp of shoes. The numerous different holders and attachments permit the user to locate accessories in a wide variety of positions on or about a shoe's vamp. However, one needs many different holders and/or accessory attachments to vary the positioning of an accessory and attach the accessory to different types of shoes. Moreover, the most beneficial holder and accessory combination will accommodate many different sizes and styles of shoes with the same holder and accessory. Thus, the individual holders and accessory attachments of the prior art fail to provide a high degree of variation in the way each of them can secure an accessory in the vamp area of a shoe.
It is an object of this invention to provide a holder for attaching an accessory to an object having an extended portion long enough to provide the necessary length to fit a releasable clasp of this invention around the object. Another object of this invention is to provide a releasable clasp and loop combination for attaching an accessory to an object having an extended portion long enough to provide the necessary length to receive the releasable clasp of this invention. A further object of this invention is to provide a holder for attaching an accessory to an object such as a person, clothing or a shoe by engaging shoelaces or hook and loop straps in multiple ways to reliably secure an accessory to a shoe in a variety of positions.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an accessory that has attachments for securing the accessory to the vamp of a shoe in multiple positions by engaging the attachments with a holder.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a combination of a holder and attachment on an accessory that provides a wide variety of possible positions in which the accessory may be securely attached about the vamp of a wide range of shoes.